Six Universities Announce the Appointments of Women Scholars to Dean Positions

Tamara F. Lawson has been named to the Toni Rembe Endowed Deanship of the University of Washington’s School of Law. She will begin her new duties on August 15. Professor Lawson comes to the University of Washington from her position as dean and professor at St. Thomas University College of Law in Miami.

Dean Lawson is a graduate of Claremont McKenna College in California. She earned a juris doctorate from the University of San Francisco School of Law and a master’s degree in law from the Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C.

Susan Alberts, the Robert F. Durden Distinguished Professor of Biology and chair of the department of evolutionary anthropology at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, will be the next dean of the university’s School of Natural Sciences, effective July 2023. Her research focuses on how animal behavior evolved in mammals, with a focus on the social behavior, demography, and genetics of the yellow baboon.

Professor Alberts is a graduate of Reed College in Portland, Oregon. She holds a master’s degree from the University of California, Los Angeles and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.

Laura Lawson, whose interests focus on urban agriculture, participatory design, and community garden and open neighborhood space design and management, has been appointed permanent executive dean of the Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences and executive director of the Rutgers New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station. She has served as interim dean and interim executive director since 2020. Earlier, she was the dean of academic programs at the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences. She is the author of City Bountiful: A Century of Community Gardening in America (University of California Press, 2005).

Professor Lawson holds a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She earned a master of landscape architecture degree and a Ph.D. in environmental planning from the University of California, Berkeley.

Elimelda Moige Ongeri is the new dean of the John R. and Kathy R. Hairston College of Health and Human Sciences at North Carolina A&T State University. She has served in the position on an interim basis since October 1. Previously Dr. Ongeri was associate dean for research and innovation and has been a professor of physiology in the college’s department of kinesiology.

Professor Ongeri earned a bachelor’s degree in animal production from Egerton University in Njoro, Kenya. She holds a master’s degree in comparative mammalian physiology from the University of Nairobi in Kenya and a master’s degree in basic medical sciences and a Ph.D. in animal physiology, both from Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.

Chrystalla Mouza has been appointed dean of the College of Education at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign effective August 15. Dr. Mouza is the director and Distinguished Professor of Teacher Education specializing in educational technology in the University of Delaware’s School of Education, and a professor of computer and information sciences in the College of Engineering at the university.

Dr. Mouza is a graduate of the University of Ioannina in Greece, where she majored in elementary education. She holds two master’s degrees and a doctorate in instructional technology and media in education from Teachers College at Columba University in New York City.

Lois Agnew is the new interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Syracuse University in New York. Since 2017, she was served as the associate dean of curriculum, innovation, and pedagogy. Dr. Agnew is past chair of the department of writing, rhetoric, and composition. She joined the faculty in 2004. Her latest book is Thomas De Quincey: British Rhetoric’s Romantic Turn (Southern Illinois University Press, 2012).

Professor Agnew earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English at the University of Texas at Arlington. She holds a Ph.D. in English from Texas Christian University.